Favourite sound of the week #7

Published May 7, 2013

As I promised before, here’s this week’s favourite sound of the week, which is a poor old Digi002’s fader pack in its last days of existence.

I’ve recorded this last year without any serious purpose. One morning when I switched on the unit, I heard these strange, very interesting sounds and I couldn’t help but record them. The files were backed up and only a few days ago I found them, listened to them and again, immediately fell in love with the weird, mechanical, rhythmic clickety-clack.

I managed to “force” the unit to make these sounds again by using its own utility menu in standalone mode, testing the faders with step fader and with vegas mode. As it really was an old unit I had to make multiple takes as sometimes it didn’t want to even move the motorised faders. Finally, before the unit died, I was able to record the faders.

The first part is the step fader mode with obnoxious noise from the unit, which is good for us. The second part is the “vegas” mode when the faders supposed to move like a snake. The nice mechanical clickety-clack accompanied by the not so usual noise of the motors. The third part is while the poor faders are acting-up, struggling with the necessary movements.

Without the intent to restrict your imagination, these sounds are good for many mechanical, electrical, industrial effects. Mangle these as many ways as you would like to, pitch them up or down or both, cut, use only the noise part of it, etc. Have fun with them!